
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, August 7, 1993                   TAG: 9309100409
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TRICKLE-DOWN THEORY WON'T WORK

IT WAS REFRESHING to read the pro-North American Free Trade Agreement commentary on July 29 by Brink Lindsey that actually told some of the truth: ``The proper aim of trade policy is not job creation; it is wealth creation.''

This is the philosophy of the 10 percent who own 90 percent of the wealth in the United States, the 3 percent who own 95 percent of the private land in the United States. NAFTA was designed by and for them.

The rest of us have to work for a living and the availability of jobs is not an irrelevant matter. We know that, over the past 20 years, the rich have been getting richer, the poor poorer, real wages have declined and job security has disappeared.

The people of this area may not have had any input into NAFTA, but we will be among the first to be affected. Factory workers in Buena Vista will be forced to become ``competitive'' with $2-an-hour wages in Mexico. They will do this by becoming unemployed. Cattle farmers in Rockbridge County will be forced to become ``competitive'' with unlimited beef imports from the southern Mexico rain forest. They will do this by going out of business.

And what will the benefits be? Lindsey recites the mantra of the free traders: ``Increase the productivity of U.S. businesses and good jobs at good wages will take care of themselves.''

This is the trickle-down theory of job creation. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work that way anymore. The most profitable companies in the world are currently slashing work forces and wages in the cause of ``global competitiveness;'' NAFTA will accelerate this process.

For the nonwealthy class in our community, the threats from NAFTA are real and immediate, the benefits vague and illusory. Let's not accelerate the decline in our standard of living.

ERIC SHEFFIELD

BUENA VISTA

\ Don't count on the system for help

THIS IS to let people know just how the system works.

If you're injured on the job in Virginia, you have to file a claim with the state's industrial commission. Then with the insurance carrier. After about 30 to 60 days of worrying and taking calls from bill collectors, you finally get a lawyer.

Then in about another 30 days, you get your check. After another 30 to 60 days, you get a call from a rehabilitation specialist, or so they say. These people work for the insurance company.

After sending you out on job interviews that you are not suited for and after perhaps getting jobs that you are not suited for, you go back to the doctor for more health problems.

Somewhere about five or six months after your injury, they take your claim for retraining. Then, after about three to four months, you go for an evaluation that lasts three to four days. Then, after seven more months, you finally hear that you are approved for training.

So here you are about a year later thinking you are finally going to be able to do something that's positive. You buy things for school.You try to prepare your family for being without you for the next 12 to 16 months while you are at school.

So you start, then after two weeks, you get a visit from the caseworker saying that they can no longer pay for your training. They said they're sorry, but they made a mistake.

Now you're depressed because you know you can't do anything about it except start over. You're a person who wants to do something about getting off the insurance payroll and trying to make a living. But you can't.

This is why Virginia has so many people who are homeless, on welfare or in the graveyard. Thanks to the system.

EVERETTE N. HARTWELL

SALEM

by CNB